The
question whether there is a God is one which is decided on very
different grounds by different communities and different individuals.
The immense majority of mankind accept the prevailing opinion of
their own community. In the earliest times of which we have definite
history everybody believed in many gods. It was the Jews who first
believed in only one.
The first commandment, when it was new, was
very difficult to obey because the Jews had believed that Baal and
Ashtaroth and Dagon and Moloch and the rest were real gods but were
wicked because they helped the enemies of the Jews. The step from a
belief that these gods were wicked to the belief that they did not
exist was a difficult one. There was a time, namely that of Antiochus
IV, when a vigorous attempt was made to Hellenize the Jews. Antiochus
decreed that they should eat pork, abandon circumcision, and take
baths. Most of the Jews in Jerusalem submitted, but in country places
resistance was more stubborn and under the leadership of the
Maccabees the Jews at last established their right to their peculiar
tenets and customs. Monotheism, which at the beginning of the
Antiochan persecution had been the creed of only part of one very
small nation, was adopted by Christianity and later by Islam, and so
be came dominant throughout the whole of the world west of India.
From India eastward, it had no success: Hinduism had many gods;
Buddhism in its primitive form had none; and Confucianism had none
from the eleventh century onward. But, if the truth of a religion is
to be judged by its worldly success, the argument in favor of
monotheism is a very strong one, since it possessed the largest
armies, the largest navies, and the greatest accumulation of wealth.
In our own day this argument is growing less decisive. It is true
that the un-Christian menace of Japan was defeated. But the Christian
is now faced with the menace of atheistic Muscovite hordes, and it is
not so certain as one could wish that atomic bombs will provide a
conclusive argument on the side of the ism.

But
let us abandon this political and geographical way of considering
religions, which has been increasingly rejected by thinking people
ever since the time of the ancient Greeks. Ever since that time there
have been men who were not content to accept passively the religious
opinions of their neighbors, but endeavoured to consider what reason
and philosophy might have to say about the matter. In the commercial
cities of Ionia, where philosophy was invented, there were
free-thinkers in the sixth century B.C. Compared to modern
free-thinkers they had an easy task, because the Olympian gods,
however charming to poetic fancy, were hardly such as could be
defended by the metaphysical use of the unaided reason. They were met
popularly by Orphism (to which Christianity owes much) and,
philosophically, by Plato, from whom the Greeks derived a
philosophical monotheism very different from the political and
nationalistic monotheism of the Jews. When the Greek world became
converted to Christianity it combined the new creed with Platonic
metaphysics and so gave birth to theology. Catholic theologians, from
the time of Saint Augustine to the present day, have believed that
the existence of one God could be proved by the unaided reason. Their
arguments were put into final form by Saint Thomas Aquinas in the
thirteenth century. When modern philosophy began in the seventeenth
century, Descartes and Leibniz took over the old arguments somewhat
polished up, and, owing largely to their efforts, piety remained
intellectually respectable. But Locke, although himself a completely
convinced Christian, undermined the theoretical basis of the old
arguments, and many of his followers, especially in France, became
Atheists. I will not attempt to set forth in all their subtlety the
philosophical arguments for the existence of God. There is, I think,
only one of them which still has weight with philosophers, that is
the argument of the First Cause. This argument maintains that, since
everything that happens has a cause, there must be a First Cause from
which the whole series starts. The argument suffers, however, from
the same defect as that of the elephant and the tortoise. It is said
(I do not know with what truth) that a certain Hindu thinker believed
the earth to rest upon an elepha nt. When asked what the elephant
rested upon, he replied that it rested upon a tortoise. When asked
what the tortoise rested upon, he said, "I am tired of this.
Suppose we change the subject." This illustrates the
unsatisfactory character of the First-Cause argument. Nevertheless,
you will find it in some ultra -modern treatises on physics, which
contend that physical processes, traced backward in time, show that
there must have been a sudden beginning and infer that this was due
to divine Creation. They carefully abstain from attempts to show that
this hypothesis makes matters more intelligible.

The
scholastic arguments for the existence of a Supreme Being are now
rejected by most Protestant theologians in favor of new arguments
which to my mind are by no means an improvement. The scholastic
arguments were genuine efforts of thought and, if their reasoning had
been sound, they would have demonstrated the truth of their
conclusion. The new arguments, which Modernists prefer, are vague,
and the Modernists reject with contempt every effort to make them
precise. There is an appeal to the heart as opposed to the intellect.
It is not maintained that those who reject the new arguments are
illogical, but that they are destitute of deep feeling or of moral
sense. Let us nevertheless examine the modern arguments and see
whether there is anything that they really prove.

One
of the favourite arguments is from evolution. The world was once
lifeless, and when life began it was a poor sort of life consisting
of green slime and other uninteresting things. Gradually by the
course of evolution, it developed into animals and plants and at last
into MAN. Man, so the theologians assure us, is so splendid a Being
that he may well be
regarded as the culmination to which the long ages of nebula and
slime were a prelude. I think the theologians must have been
fortunate in their human contacts. They do not seem to me to have
given due weight to Hitler or the Beast of Belsen. If Omnipotence,
with all time at its disposal, thought it worth while to lead up to
these men through the many millions of years of evolution, I can only
say that the moral and aesthetic taste involved is peculiar. However,
the theologians no doubt hope that the future course of evolution
will produce more men like themselves and fewer men like Hitler. Let
us hope so. But, in cherishing this hope, we are abandoning the
ground of experience and taking refuge in an optimism which history
so far does not support.

There
are other objections to this evolutionary optimism. There is every
reason to believe that life on our planet will not continue forever
so that any optimism based upon the course of terrestrial history
must be temporary and limited in its purview. There may, of course,
be life elsewhere but, if there is, we know nothing about it and have
no reason to suppose that it bears more resemblance to the virtuous
theologians than to Hitler. The earth is a very tiny corner of the
universe. It is a little fragment of the solar system. The solar
system is a little fragment of the Milky Way. And the Milky Way is a
little fragment of the many millions of galaxies revealed by modern
telescopes. In this little insignificant corner of the cosmos there
is a brief interlude between two long lifeless epochs. In this brief
interlude, there is a much briefer one containing man. If really man
is the purpose of the universe the preface seems a little long. One
is reminded of some prosy old gentleman who tells an interminable
anecdote all quite uninteresting until the rather small point in
which it ends. I do not think theologians show a suitable piety in
making such a comparison possible.

It
has been one of the defects of theologians at all times to
over-esti-mate the importance of our planet. No doubt this was
natural enough in the days before Copernicus when it was thought that
the heavens revolve about the earth. But since Copernicus and still
more since the modern exploration of distant regions, this
pre­occupation with the earth has become rather parochial. If the
universe had a Creator, it is hardly reasonable to suppose that He
was specially interested in our little corner. And, if He was not,
His values must have been different from ours, since in the immense
majority of regions life is impossible.

There
is a moralistic argument for belief in God, which was popularized by
William James. According to this argument, we ought to believe in God
because, if we do not, we shall not behave well. The first and
greatest objection to this argument is that, at its best, it cannot
prove that there is a God but only that politicians and educators
ought to try to make people think there is one. Whether this ought to
be done or not is not a theological question but a political one. The
arguments are of the same sort as those which urge that children
should be taught respect for the flag. A man with any genuine
religious feeling will not be content with the view that the belief
in God is useful, because he will wish to know whether, in fact, the
re is a God. It is absurd to contend that the two questions are the
same. In the nursery, belief in Father Christmas is useful, but
grown-up people do not think that this proves Father Christmas to be
real.

Since
we are not concerned with politics we might consider this sufficient
refutation of the moralistic argument, but it is perhaps worthwhile
to pursue this a little further. It is, in the first place, very
doubtful whether belief in God has all the beneficial moral effects
that are attributed to it. Many of the best men known to history have
been unbelievers. John Stuart Mill may serve as an instance. And many
of the worst men known to history have been believers. Of this there
are innumerable instances. Perhaps Henry VIII may serve as typical.

However
that may be, it is always disastrous when governments set to work to
uphold opinions for their utility rather than for their truth. As
soon as this is done it becomes necessary to have a censorship to
suppress adverse arguments, and it is thought wise to discourage
thinking among the young for fear of encouraging "dangerous
thoughts." When such mal-practices are employed against religion
as they are in Soviet Russia, the theologians can see that they are
bad, but they are still bad when employed in defence of what the
theologians think good. Freedom of thought and the habit of giving
weight to evidence are matters of far greater moral import than the
belief in this or that theological dogma. On all these grounds it
cannot be maintained that theological beliefs should be upheld for
their usefulness without regard to their truth.

There
is a simpler and more naive form of the same argument, which appeals
to many individuals. People will tell us that without the
consolations of religion they would be intolerably unhappy. So far as
this is true, it is a coward's argument. Nobody but a coward would
consciously choose to live in a fool's paradise. When a man suspects
his wife of infidelity, he is not thought the better of for shutting
his eyes to the evidence. And I cannot see why ignoring evidence
should be contemptible in one case and admirable in the other. Apart
from this argument the importance of religion in contributing to
individual happiness is very much exaggerated. Whether you are happy
or unhappy depends upon a number of factors. Most people need good
health and enough to eat. They need the good opinion of their social
milieu and the affection of their intimates. They need not only
physical health but mental health. Given all these things, most
people will be happy whatever their theology. Without them, most
people will be unhappy, whatever their theology. In thinking over the
people I have known, I do not find that on the average those who had
religious beliefs were happier than those who had not.

When
I come to my own beliefs, I find myself quite unable to discern any
purpose in the universe, and still more unable to wish to discern
one. Those who imagine that the course of cosmic evolution is slowly
leading up to some consummation pleasing to the Creator, are
logically committed (though they usually fail to realize this) to the
view that the Creator is not omnipotent or, if He were omnipotent, He
could decree the end without troubling about means. I do not myself
perceive any consummation toward which the universe is tending.
According to the physicists, energy will be gradually more evenly
distributed and as it becomes more evenly distributed it will become
more useless. Gradually everything that we find interesting or
pleasant, such as life and light, will disappear -- so, at least,
they assure us. The cosmos is like a theatre in which just once a
play is performed, but, after the curtain falls, the theatre is left
cold and empty until it sinks in ruins. I do not mean to assert with
any positiveness that this is the case. That would be to assume more
knowledge than we possess. I say only that it is what is probable on
present evidence. I will not assert dogmatically that there is no
cosmic purpose, but I will say that there is no shred of evidence in
favor of there being one.

I
will say further that, if there be a purpose and if this purpose is
that of an Omnipotent Creator, then that Creator, so far from being
loving and kind, as we are told, must be of a degree of wickedness
scarcely conceivable. A man who commits a murder is considered to be
a bad man. An Omnipotent Deity, if there be one, murders everybody. A
man who willingly afflicted another with cancer would be considered a
fiend. But the Creator, if He exists, afflicts many thousands every
year with this dreadful disease. A man who, having the knowledge and
power required to make his children good, chose instead to make them
bad, would be viewed with execration. But God, if He exists, makes
this choice in the case of very many of His children. The whole
conception of an omnipotent God whom it is impious to criticize,
could only have arisen under oriental despotisms where sovereigns, in
spite of capricious cruelties, continued to enjoy the adulation of
their slaves. It is the psychology appropriate to this outmoded
political system which belatedly survives in orthodox theology.

There
is, it is true, a Modernist form of theism, according to which God is
not omnipotent, but is doing His best, in spite of great
difficulties. This view, although it is new among Christians, is not
new in the history of thought. It is, in fact, to be found in Plato.
I do not think this view can be proved to be false. I think all that
can be said is that there is no positive reason in its favour.

Many
orthodox people speak as though it were the business of sceptics to
disprove received dogmas rather than of dogmatists to prove them.
This is, of course, a mistake. If I were to suggest that between the
Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an
elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion
provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be
revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on
to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is
intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I
should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the
existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as
the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of
children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would
become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the
attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the
Inquisitor in an earlier time. It is customary to suppose that, if a
belief is widespread, there must be something reasonable about it. I
do not think this view can be held by anyone who has studied history.
Practically all the beliefs of savages are absurd. In early
civilizations there may be as much as one percent for which there is
something to be said. In our own day...... But at this point I must
be careful.

We
all know that there are absurd beliefs in Soviet Russia. If we are
Protestants, we know that there are absurd beliefs among Catholics.
If we are Catholics, we know that there are absurd beliefs among
Protestants. If we are Conservatives, we are amazed by the
superstitions to be found in the Labour Party. If we are Socialists,
we are aghast at the credulity of Conservatives. I do not know, dear
reader, what your beliefs may be, but whatever they may be, you must
concede that nine-tenths of the beliefs of nine -tenths of mankind
are totally irrational. The beliefs in question are, of course, those
which you do not hold. I cannot, therefore, think it presumptuous to
doubt something which has long been held to be true, especially when
this opinion has only prevailed in certain geographical regions, as
is the case with all theological opinions.

My
conclusion is that there is no reason to believe any of the dogmas
of traditional theology and, further, that there is no reason to wish
that they were true. Man, in so far as he is not subject to natural
forces, is free to work out his own destiny. The responsibility is
his, and so is the opportunity.